Saadat Manto - Bombay Stories

I didn’t know what to say. I looked at Zinat, and she blushed. ‘I think she’s good,’ I said casually.

Babu Gopi Nath liked my answer. ‘Yes, Manto Sahib, she really is good. I swear to God, Zinat isn’t into jewellery or anything else. So many times I’ve said, “My dear, shall I build you a house?” And guess what she says? “What would I do with a house? I’m all alone.” ’ Then he asked, ‘Manto Sahib, how much does a car cost?’

‘I don’t know.’

Babu Gopi Nath was surprised. ‘What’re you saying, Manto Sahib! You don’t know how much cars cost? Impossible! Tomorrow come with me, and we’ll buy Zinu a car. I’ve realized you have to have a car in Bombay.’

Zinat’s face remained expressionless.

Then Babu Gopi Nath got very drunk. With his emotions running high, he said, ‘Manto Sahib, you’re a very decent man, but I’m a total ass. Tell me, how can I be of service to you? Yesterday when I was talking to Saindo, he brought up your name. I immediately hailed a taxi and said to him, “Take me to Manto Sahib.” Forgive me if I’ve said anything rude. I’ve committed many sins.’ Then he asked, ‘Should I call for some more whisky?’

‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I’ve already had plenty.’

He became even more emotional. ‘Drink some more, Manto Sahib!’ Then he got out his wad of hundred-rupee notes and started to separate one. Before he could finish, I grabbed the clip and stuffed it back into his pocket. ‘What happened to the hundred rupees you gave Ghulam Ali?’

In truth, I had begun to feel some sympathy for Babu Gopi Nath. How many people had latched like leeches onto this poor soul! Really, he was such a fool, and yet he understood what I was asking. Smiling, he said, ‘Manto Sahib, whatever change Ghulam Ali gets is sure to fall from his pocket or …’

Babu Gopi Nath hadn’t finished the sentence when Ghulam Ali walked into the room and informed us in a tone of great distress that some bastard at the restaurant had pick-pocketed every last rupee. Babu Gopi Nath turned to me and smiled. Then he took out a new note. He gave it to Ghulam Ali and said, ‘Hurry and bring us some food.’

After we met five or six times, I came to understand Babu Gopi Nath’s true character. Well, I admit that you cannot know someone completely but I learned many extremely interesting things about him.

First, I want to say again that my initial opinion proved wrong: he wasn’t an idiot at all. He knew very well that Saindo, Ghulam Ali, Sardar, and the others hung around only to use him. He bore with their scolding and insults and never got angry. He confessed, ‘Manto Sahib, I’ve never asked anyone for advice. Whenever anyone gives me advice, I say, “Wonderful!” They think I’m stupid, but I think they’re smart — at least they’re smart enough to see how they can take advantage of me. The truth is that I’ve lived with dervishes and gypsies since I was a child. I love them and can’t live without them. I’ve decided that I’m going to stay at a saint’s shrine as soon as my money runs out. Whorehouses and shrines — I feel at peace nowhere else. I’ll quit going to whorehouses soon enough because my money’s about to run out. But India has thousands of saints. I’ll go find one when my time comes.’

‘Why do you like whorehouses and shrines?’ I asked.

He thought for a moment and then answered, ‘Because there, from top to bottom, it’s all about deception. What better place could there be for a person who wants to deceive himself?’

‘If you like listening to courtesans’ singing, you must know a lot about music.’

‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘And this is good because hearing the singing of even the worst courtesan I can nod my head in appreciation. Manto Sahib, I’ve absolutely no interest in singing, but I get a lot of pleasure from taking a ten- or hundred-rupee note and showing it to a woman. I get out the note and show it to her. She stands up with a sexy flourish to come take it, but when she comes close I jam it in my pocket. She bends down and takes the note from my pocket and this makes me very happy. We playboys enjoy a lot of small things like that. Anyway, everyone knows that parents force their daughters into whorehouses to earn money, and people use God in the same way.’

I didn’t know anything about Babu Gopi Nath’s family, but I did find out that he was the son of a very stingy moneylender. When his father died, Babu Gopi Nath had inherited assets worth a million rupees that he liquidated and spent however he chose. He brought 50,000 rupees to Bombay. Back then everything was cheap, and yet he managed to spend one hundred or 125 rupees a day.

He bought a Fiat for Zinu. I don’t remember exactly, but I think it cost about 3,000 rupees. He hired a driver, another worthless character. Babu Gopi Nath liked people like that.

We began to get together more frequently. I was interested in him, but he began to revere me as if I were a saint. He had faith in me and respected me more than he did the others.

One evening when I went to the apartment, I was surprised to see Shafiq there. You’ll probably recognize the name, Muhammad Shafiq Tusi. He was very famous, both on account of his inventive singing and his wit and charm, and yet there was a part of his life that most people didn’t know about. Very few people knew he had made three sisters his lovers — one after the other after the other — keeping each for three or four years before moving on, and how before that he had been their mother’s lover too. Most people knew he didn’t like his first wife (who died soon after they got married) because she didn’t flirt with him like a courtesan. But everyone knew that he had slept with hundreds of women by the time he reached forty. He wore fancy clothes, ate excellent food, and owned the most luxurious cars. But he never spent even a single rupee on any prostitute.

His entertainer’s personality was very attractive to women, especially prostitutes, and he could seduce them with hardly any effort.

When I saw him getting on so well with Zinat, I wasn’t surprised. I only wondered how he got there: Saindo knew him, but they hadn’t been talking to each other for a long time. It was only afterwards that I learned that no one other than Saindo had brought him and that the two had made up.

Babu Gopi Nath was sitting on one side of the room and smoking a hookah. (Perhaps I didn’t mention earlier that he didn’t smoke cigarettes.) Muhammad Shafiq Tusi was telling jokes about entertainers, jokes that pleased Sardar more than Zinat. When Shafiq saw me, he said, ‘Oh, bismillah, bismillah! So you, too, come here?’

‘Please come in, Angel of Death,’ Saindo said to me. ‘Here everything’s ding-dong-dang.’ I understood what he meant.

The gossiping continued for a while. I noticed Zinat and Muhammad Shafiq Tusi exchange suggestive glances. Zinat was completely untrained in this art of flirting, but Shafiq’s mastery made up for her rawness. Sardar was looking at them as a wrestling coach sitting outside the wrestling ring watches two pupils feint and dodge.

Over the course of time, I gradually grew friendly with Zinat. She took to calling me ‘bhai’, and I quite liked this. She was sociable but didn’t talk much; she was guileless and sincere.

But I didn’t like her flirting with Shafiq. First of all, she did it awkwardly. The fact that she called me ‘bhai’ also had something to do with it. When Shafiq and Saindo got up and went outside, I asked her about this flirting but perhaps I did so too severely because suddenly tears welled in her eyes and she left crying for another room. Babu Gopi Nath, sitting in a corner and drawing on his hookah, quickly got up and followed her. Sardar said something to him through a series of glances, but I couldn’t tell what. A little while later Babu Gopi Nath reappeared and called to me, ‘Manto Sahib, please come with me.’ I followed him.